The Campaign for Elected Police Commissioners Starts Here

Once again it would appear that a significant political event is looking like it may occur unnoticed, as the title of this piece would lead you to understand I am talking about the elections in November to elect police and crime commissioners (PCC). For me this is a massive change in the political spectrum and one that I have personally supported for a long time, I am disappointed however that such a seismic switch in the political landscape should come without a referendum and a mandate from the people (As is happening for the elected mayors) obviously as a supporter of the idea I would have voted for it however there is a certain argument that could be put forward that the police service should not be accountable to politicians and that the Police must be free to uphold the law without being subject to the whims of the majority (Don’t forget that both Racial Segregations and Fascist Governments have been brought in by popular vote) so it would have been nice to have the debate first.

All that being said this is now going to be one of the most important locally elected officials, I think you could actually say the most important after all this one person will have a real effect on crime and disorder in your area and this is something that will affect everyone, for the most part the local council services are passive to use where as when it occurs crime is intrusive – If you try you can basically ignore what the council is doing where as crime can affect anyone at any time. So for this reason I am going to give the Sussex campaign as much attention as I can so at least my two readers will know a bit more about what is going on.

I am also looking to leave any party political bias out of my writing of these campaigns, my personal ideal of an elected police commissioner would be for an independent, in fact I think these roles would be ideally suited to someone with Job knowledge who also knew how the political games worked, for example Ray Mallon who is the Mayor of Middlesbrough.

In the Next Few Days I will be reviewing the people who have so far thrown their hats into the rings but for now here is the information I obtained from the Police Foundation.

But as a start here are the people that are looking to stand in the election.

Name: Paul Richards
Party: Labour
Website: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2012/01/13/power-to-the-pccs/
Occupation: Labour Author and Commentator
Political Experience: Losing Parliamentary Candidate in Lewes

Name: Ian Chisnall
Party: Independent
Website: http://ianforpcc.wordpress.com/
Occupation: Works extensivly in the voluntary Sector including working with Brighton Street Pasters and Sussex Churches Together
Political Experience: 2004 - 2009 Member of the Sussex Court Board, Since 2004 Member of he Independant Advisory Board.

Name: Peter Jones
Party Conservatives
Website: www.votepj.com/news.aspx
Occupation: Worked in Investment Banking and was a non-executive director for a number of companies, he retired in 1994.
Political Experience: Peter Jones was elected as an East Sussex County Councillor in 1997 and leader of the council from 2001, Peter was chairman of the Sussex Police Authority from 2005 – 2007 he was also Deputy Chairman of SEEDA
Other: He is married to Ex-Conservative MP Jacqui Lait (MP for Beckenham until 2010)

Name: Paul Dendle
Party: Conservative
Website: http://www.pauldendle.blogspot.com/
Occupation: Paul was Managing Director of Avro PLC until he sold the company in 1995, in his websites profile he lists his business interests as varied among travel, technology and property.
Political Experience: Paul was elected to Arun District Council (Arundel Ward) in 2003 and has been cabinet minister for central services since 2006.

Woman arrested for wearing a Bikini

Another story that caught my eye today was of a British Woman being held in Dubai for wearing a Bikini in public, It appears the woman was walking through Dubai Mall in a low cut top when she was challenged by a local woman, after a heated debate she stripped down to her Bikini and was arrested when the police attended the scene. Now this is not the first case of public indecency charges against UK citizens this year as it follows the case of an unmarried couple imprisoned for “Kissing and fondling each other” personally I am getting a bit sick of hearing these stories and the inevitable claims of unfairness that follow. If you go to another country – respect their laws! It is not hard, if you wish to walk around in a bikini or you can not control your actions in public perhaps the Islamic world should not be your first choice for a holiday destination.

Although to be honest I don’t actually see any reason for people to be half naked in this country either, or be all over each other whilst you are out in public, people often talk about the laws in Islamic countries being very backwards but there is a word for creatures that can not wear clothes or resist their urges for a few minutes and that word is - Animal. So perhaps we are the ones who are going backwards, whilst I am a lover of freedom I subscribe more to the philosophy that you have the freedom to go to Dubai or not, rather than the freedom to go there and act however you wish. I have chosen not to ever go there but this is based more on my experiences in Egypt and Tunisia and my desire to be treated as more than just a walking wallet than a worry of being unable to dress myself in the morning.

One More Post - Quote of the Day

I had not intended to make yet another post today but saw what has to be the quote of the day in this article over on the BBC.

The story is of a man (assumed) that has placed large posters (A4 and A3) of his Penis around Lewes, the quote comes from a PCSO in the area.


"However, from what we've seen, if this is a self-portrait, the artist won't be in a hurry to be identified."

During a long random searching of websites I ended up on a Site called www.not-a-crime.com this is a site involved in the campaign against the police using Section 44 of the Anti Terrorism Act.

Now whilst I fully support the police in their very difficult task of keeping us all safe, we should remember that the reason the "West" came under attack in the first place is because certain people did not like the fact that we lived in an open, free and liberal society. A society where you should be allowed to take a photo of a bus leaving walthemstow station without the fear of arrest.

Now I have always believed that the cases like that of Kevin Geraghty-Sherwin who was threatened with arrest for taking a photo of his son were due to over zealous jobs Worths and people who do not understand that we have no privacy laws in this country, however if not a crime are to be believed then just about every force in the UK have geared themselves up to make photography illegal, and, if this is true, this should not go unchallenged.

Labour's Scortched Earth Policy, The Police and Thailand

I am off to Weston-Super-Mere today for a meeting regarding a new database and so have had plenty of time to look through the paper (Metro on this occasion) and a couple of stories leaped out at me.

First, there is a story about civil servants having their bonuses stopped, in fact it states that only the best performing 25% will get a bonus, surely this is right, as if you are under performing why would you get a Bonus? Whilst I think perhaps just the top 25% may be a bit tough after all I am sure the people in the 26th percentile are probably still doing a good job, we are in unprecedented debt levels so it will take some pain for all to get us out of it.

It was also pointed out that Labour rushed to sign off 14Billion of contracts leading up to the election including 420Million on new schools, 13Billion on a tanker aircraft programme and 600Million on a computer contract. One former advisor to the old government is quoted as saying "The atmosphere was pull up the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the tories." - is this governing in the public good? Anyone involved in this kind of destructive, malignant government should be barred for ever holding public office again.

Second story to grab my attention is about Police to civilian ratio. The Chairman of the Police Federation, Paul McKeever has said that the increase in the percentage between Police and civilian staff can lead to danger to public safety. Now I have to declare that I am not neutral in this debate as my brother is a police officer as were my father and uncle before him. I am therefore quite pro police officer, however I do feel that we use far too many police officers in far too many back office positions. My personal view is that I would like to see all non-command office positions filled with civil servants and all officers out on the street replacing PCSO's (not that I think pcso's do a bad job, I have met many as a councillor and found them all very competent.) But why should a fully trained warranted PC be stuck in an office filling out paperwork for more than half their shift?

Finally I was upset to see that the death toll in Thailand has increased to 30 with 232 injured after another day of violence, in what is a mostly ignored topic. There are around 5000 supporters of the former Thai prime minister in a camp in Bangkok who have been advised to leave as the government troops have stated they will escalate their response. With over 200 of them already shot by the armed services I can't even imagine what the week will bring for them.